~ Gathering the pieces of our lives together under the eyes of the Holy

Tag Archives: Spirit

I am right between Mother’s Day and Pentecost. Our pastor gave a trenchant sermon last week on the “mothering” aspects of the Holy, taken from the first story of the creation, allowing that to neglect the feminine force of God means we are missing out on part Hebrew word, Ruach, Spirit, present at the creation. This week we are anticipating celebrating Ruach once again, this time when She came visibly and audibly on the gathered ones to create a community called Church.

I am wondering what is particular about the Mothering Spirit this week. Our new-ish hymnal gives many choices:

Womb of life and source of being, home of every restless heart,/ in your arms the world’s awakened, you have loved us from the start. (Ruth Duck, 1986)

Like a mother you enfold me, hold my life within your own…(Shirley Erena Murray, 1986)

As a daughter and as a mother and grandmother, I recognize what it is like both to give and receive that kind of care. However, I must say in honesty that that kind of care was not only offered by women, or by mothers. I have been graced to receive it from surprising places, from unpredictable places.

So what is it? In conversation with a friend this week, we tried to identify one who embodied a mothering Spirit in our faith journeys. Our attention fell naturally and the easily on the woman who had been our spiritual director for many years, Betsy, whose “Rainbow Quilt” and “Mourning Quilt” are attached. Words like Grace, hospitality, welcome, wisdom, joy, creativity, bubbled up between us. But more than anything else was the sense that she saw us and knew us for who and what we are and loved with unconditional graceful regard, without judgement, categorization or label. That was evident in many ways, and led me to recall others who have “mothered” me along the way.

In the days that followed I am thinking of other persons of mothering spirit:

a college counselor who took delight in me and imagined my future accomplishments

a pastor who was not threatened by my questioning struggle, but challenged me to pursue being all I was meant to be

a couple in my church who subsidized a trip to my first Christian feminist conference when I was a new mother of two small children

that one who sat with me as I wept over a deep, deep loss

that one who saw my mistake and helped me try over again

the one who taught me certain kinds of knowledge and skills with patience, always believing I could do it

the ones who listened without censoring to my stories, sometimes over and over again

So as I prepare to celebrate the Holy Spirit tomorrow, who gave birth to the Church and to all people, I am grateful for all the “mothering” I have had, whether it came from a man or a woman, an elder or child or peer, from a source I had hoped for or a complete surprise. All of them were holy. All in that moment saw me for who I was right then, and all were cheering me forward. I am blessed by that Mothering, and I want continue to keep Mothering, in Spirit and in Truth!

Come. Holy Spirit! Today we celebrate your presence in our lives, in the Church and in the world.

I pray to meet you in the depth of my heart where I am so prone to fear and anxiety, so quick to forget that I am committed to Hope, to Love, intending to believing and acting on the principle that “all will be well, all will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

I pray to let you heal me–body and spirit–of those wounds and scars that are left over from old memories, early traumas and the hurts and slights that keep popping up in the course of my daily rounds.

I pray to feel your energy surging in my recovering body, in my brain that too often forgets things these days, in my praying spirit that bogs down with the enormity and complexity of this sad world.

I pray to allow your wildness keep opening my heart to finding ways when there seems to be no way, to taking in the most unlikely ones who cross my path, to putting the resources I have to the healing of the fragments of this world where I can make a difference, however small.

I pray for the wounds of so many in so many places, with its accompanying fear that we can’t know where terror will break out next. I pray that You will keep up Your powerful attack on the minds and wills of those who are heartless, greedy and self-serving only, and transform their hearts to ones of compassion and caring.

I pray for Your Presence in the created world, that as it struggles to survive and thrive, you will teach me how to cooperate with that healing, with Your power to give me words and actions that will preserve and respect the beauty and sustainability of Earth’s resources.

I pray for Your Wisdom for all people of faith as they wrestle to know how to be observant of their commitment to You in times and events that are muddy and messy.

I pray that You, Holy Healer, will touch the bodies and spirits and minds of those who suffer, and where there is despair, replace it with hope and peace.

And for all those areas for which I have words but can’t get them out, and for those things deep inside me for which I have no words, Spirit, turn them into creative and cogent expressions of my heart to the Holy–for what is loving. joyful, peaceful, kind and generous, and faithful in my walking and talking, singing and dancing, working and giving, hoping and living each day with imagination, energy and love.

I have been comforted on my Lenten journey to encounter Holy Presence in signs and detours and delight. However, I am deeply aware that I am also daily faced with other phenomena: valleys–of the shadow of death, of dry bones, of tears; and of depths–sorrow, fears and despair. I am of that era in my life where news of death, of troubling diagnoses, of unbearable losses are so regular that they are almost routine. Not a day goes by without another request for prayer–for the world, for the nation, for the Church, and for people who are loved and cherished. And so I travel the Lenten way on a road of mourning as well as rejoicing.

The “valley of the shadow of death” becomes more real to me each year. I have been helped greatly by reading the two volumes by Marilyn Chandler McEntryre for those traveling in that valley, those who are facing death themselves, A Faithful Farewell,and for those losing someone they love, A Long Letting Go. The author herself, no stranger to grief, gives some perspective, some comfort and some practical helps is the process of mourning:

To mourn is to open ourselves to comfort, which is a unique dimension of love. To mourn is to make our sorrow hospitable to those who are willing to enter into it…Our work is to accept the sorrow, to live it, to suffer it, and finally in humility to let it be drenched in the healing waters of love that come to us from as many sources as we allow–great wells of it, great waves of it, and daily infusions from old friends and from strangers who may be angels sent to walk us through the valley of the shadow. (A Long Letting Go,pp. 84-85)

Part of my Lenten journey is to do this work of mourning, on behalf of those whom I have lost, and on behalf of those who are in the valley of the shadow themselves right now. Yesterday I heard of two more friends who have lost parents, always a turning point in each person’s life. I now know that grieving is holy work, an important piece of giving sanctuary to those I am given in the world.

Others within my ken can only see a Valley of Dry Bones when they look at our world–few life givers, few Spirit breathers, few points of Light. I resonate with that. If I only read headlines, banners and listen to sound bites, I know that dry bones might be all that I could see also. But I feel strongly that even as I look at the Truth, with as much clarity as I can, I must point to and witness to a bigger reality than the current state of things in the universe, the nations, the Church, even in the microcosms of deadness in our personal lives. I believe that in God’s providence, there are no final defeats. Therefore, I plant myself in that reality as a starting place on my Lenten journey, and then pray, as I weep over the Valley of Dry Bones, that the Spirit will breathe Life back into them. I ask also what my part will be in that; to whom do I speak? to whom do I give? am I invited to bear witness in a way that is public and noticeable?

And with those whose losses can seem less tangible, less noticeable, less dramatic, but who like the Psalmist have experienced that “tears have been my food day and night, while people say continually, ‘Where is your God?'”, I am to be a friend listening to their truth with respect and without judgement, and without letting their sorrow become my sorrow, only holding them with compassion and hope.

These valleys and shadows are not the easiest part of the Lenten journey. And once again I turn to a British hymn set to a French carol:

When our hearts are wintry, grieving, or in pain,/your touch can call us back to life again;/fields of our hearts that dead and bare have been:/Love is come again like wheat that riseth green. (John Crum, 1928)

I hold this as I continue on my Lenten way, for those I have lost, for those I love, and for myself.

I noticed this week that although I have trusted that peace was first an interior attitude of Spirit, I also come more readily into peace (which passes understanding) when I am in a physical environment of peace. I enter into it whenever I am able to retreat to the Immaculate Heart Center at Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara. I felt it when I visited the exhibit of Agnes Martin paintings at the Los Angeles Museum of Art this week. I am always engulfed in peace when I hear concerts by the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Disney Hall. And I am learning more deeply, and leaning more fully into “the peace of wild things,” as Wendell Berry calls it, as I encounter and attend to the natural world.

This morning as I went out early to pick up the newspaper, as I was musing about the new stalks of irises about to bloom, yet again, I heard a thrilling and joyful birdsong which I was able to follow to a mockingbird perched on a “No Parking” sign directly across from my house. No one else was visible, no other noises were audible, and this moment there was a peaceful beauty as the sun rose in the east, that tuned my own heart to the Peace of the Holy. I sense in my body and soul when I have entered into a place of peace.

I wonder why I don’t seek out these places with more regularity. Between my enslavement to the clock, my anticipatory anxiety, and my restless mind, I find it difficult to follow Wendell Berry, to turn aside into the places and the things that foster peace. I don’t lack possibilities. Several years ago my husband and I each bought each other simultaneously, and unbeknownst to the other, a book called Peaceful Places in Los Angeles (Laura Randall, Menasha Ridge Press, 20010). Each week that summer I explored one of the 110 “tranquil sites” listed in the book. I selected a place for each Thursday morning, setting out with a sacred book, journal, hat, and sunglasses. I sat in the courtyard of Union Station downtown, perused the collection of the Long Beach Museum of Art on the ocean, savored the UCLA Murphy Sculpture Garden, and and browsed Small World Books in Venice. I visited for the first time the Lake Shrine Temple in Pacific Palisades and the labyrinth at the Neighborhood Church in Palos Verdes Estates.

Several things happened in these pilgrimages. I was removed from my quotidian routine and daily distractions; my sojourn was intentionally to seek the things that made for peace in my being. And I discovered delights and challenges right around me that I had never known were there. Not every single one felt like what the Celts call a “thin place,” where heaven and earth intersect, yet every one had things of beauty and interest. Moreover, the time and attention that I gave to this quest brought me nearer each time to that place of peace for which I yearn day after day.

So! my spiritual practice in this ordinary time leading into the summertime is to pick up the practice again. According to the book, there are many place that still await:Amir’s Garden in Griffith Park, the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, Jin Patisserie in Venice, Wattles Garden Park in Hollywood, and many more. My guess is there are also hidden places of peace not even catalogued in the book.

And I need to bring my open heart. The apostle Paul write in Philippians that the steps to that openness are gratitude–again and again; gentleness to everybody; letting go of worry and anxiety, and: the peace of God which surpasses understanding will keep our hearts and minds safe (Phil 4:7) as we enter into the peaceful places.

Here’s to a summer of entering the places and practicing the attitudes that make for peace!

The big pressures of the Season are over, and even though there continues to be much to do, I feel as if I can pause to take a breath. I have been doing a great deal of reading about “mindfulness,” and listening to a multitude of voices who speak from their experiences about what this practice does for, in and through them. In attempting to participate in the practices about which I read, however, I find that they are not intuitive to me, or easy to get the hang of.

This break in the liturgical year between Epiphany and Lent does give me space to try to practice some ways of mindfulness. The calendar is not quite so event-filled, the deadlines have been met for the time being, and the sales forces are losing a little of their steam. I can be a little less in a hurry, a little gentler in my intention, and more expansive in my gaze. Susan Phillips in her book, The Cultivated Life, (IVP,2014), when speaking of mindfulness for someone on a faith quest, says this: The praying person enters the silence, pays attention to what’s on her heart, and then directs attention to God, aided by the text and the community.” (116)

I am attempting to take that pause, to allow this change of pace to be more mindful and attentive. On a trip to the section of beach where dogs can roam free, accompanied by my grandson, husband and wild dog Max, in the crispness and quiet, I sit shivering, but still, captured by the juxtaposition of motion and stasis: rolling waves, calm ocean farther out; dark mass of clouds softening into promising light; intrepid surfers and quiet watchers. How do I attend to Holy Presence in this moment?

I begin with gratefulness–for being here in this moment to behold the beauty of the Creator in wave, sky and sand; to delight in the weaving of grand-boy, grandfather and dog, up and down the strand; for living in proximity to ocean and mountain both; for ample time to take a day to celebrate the birthday of this unique grandchild, with a love for creatures and a longing to wander untethered in as much wilderness as he can inhabit.

Then with the prayer, Loving God, here I am, I turn my heart to questions for clarity: what do you want me to know? where do you want me to be? how shall I do the next right thing? I experience these prayers as seeds being sown in the garden of my heart, to be brought to fruition when the time in right. For the moment I need only to offer them, and sit with the panorama of Light and Dark before me, and wait. Like the roses in my garden behind and as the irises in my garden in front, the flowering of answers will appear in due season.

The next morning I am in a sanctuary preparing for worship. I am sitting with my husband, there is powerful music, stained glass, and a welcoming liturgy. But first to get quiet. I find that I routinely need to do things: rest in the truth that I am now a “person in the pew” not a worship leader, and that I need to recycle all the Grace that was extended to me by letting go of any bits and bobs of critique I might carry forward from my years of experience as pastor; then, I need to remind myself that I am gathered here with the people of God in worship of the Mystery we call God, even though I don’t have deep friendships or feel connected. I am ready now to pray, Loving God, here I am, and to see what how the Spirit will catch my attention and nourish my thirsty soul. Will it be words of a new hymn? will it be the reading of the Word by a sweet and adept 10 year old? will it be a line from the Word preached, a cadence sung by the alto soloist, an invitation to participate in the healing of the world close by? I tune my hearts to listen.

The next challenge will be to bring my practice of mindfulness to a committee meeting. Will I be able to lay aside my resistances, my anxieties, my critical spirit long enough to be quiet, pray again Loving God, here I am, and then listen for what prompts the Spirit brings to me: is this a time to speak, to refer to my past experience, to jump into the fray or this is a time to call of the Spirit ot “set a seal on my mouth,” to listen to the deliberations with an open heart, while praying for the common good for all of us gathered?

“Thou will keep her in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee…” Isaiah 26:3

When I was in ministry in the parish, Pentecost seemed to be a big Bold Celebration…broad swatches of red, images of fire, forceful kettledrums and swelling organ sounds. If we were fortunate, members of the congregation who had a mastery of another language would read Scripture in another tongue, intimating, if not imitating what the first Pentecost sounded like.

This year, however, as a person in the pew, someone whose role in the Church and whose way forward is not completely clear, I felt more like one of the gathered disciples in the room, praying, wondering, managing fear, and I wasn’t quite sure I would be glad if indeed I suddenly did find myself crowned with a tongue of fire. My own interior did not feel very flammable, and even though there were kettle drums and chimes, and a favorite passage read in nine different languages, I felt unable to join the band. Until I stopped paying attention to the Big and the Bold, and to watch for the Spirit in the littles! Rather than looking to a swiftly descending dove or a bright red, orange and yellow conflagration, I began to be aware of the embers of the Sacred Fire, the Holy Spirit, planted in me by the Risen Christ, continuously setting off sparks of energy, imagination and love, and companioning me through the darkness of solitude, of anxiety, of bafflement and of despair for the world.

The Holy Spirit was virtually left out of my early curriculum in the Church, but as an adult learner I have encountered Her Presence in Scripture, in creation, and in the lives of those in the world who are on a journey of Spirit with tenacious power. And so, I was able, with my lens re-focused, to see in that Pentecost worship last Sunday the embers of Spirit Presence in small but important ways: familiar words of an old hymn provoke a memory of aha moments when I trusted that the Spirit was my friend; imagining the stories of the nine readers of Scripture, pondering the way they had been Spirit-led to be in this place on this Sunday; the particular syntax and subjects of the pastoral prayer that carried so much of my own concerns; the gentle inclusiveness of the preached word; the quiet offerings of grace as the plate was passed–all sparks of Spirit, not incendiary on the surface or always feel like something to write home about, but leaving me with renewed love for the Mystery of the Holy and for the people who chose to celebrate together that morning, and with hope for this tattered world which invites and needs those hot coals of Grace that the Spirit keeps aglow.

Home alone i am aware that those embers of Spirit are always glowing in me, and that as one person in the Church I live out Pentecost in my daily meandering–wrangling the dog, reaching out to friends and neighbors, watering my garden, writing a letter of care, reading new thoughts that challenge me, sharing my good and heart with those who suffer, sit in a committee meeting–the spark of Spirit is passed along, and the power of the Spirit is let loose in the world. It only takes a spark–of Spirit! from the embers that rest in my heart.